


Six Halves of One

by beetle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Awkward Romance, Backstory, Banter, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Failboats In Love, Falling In Love, Foot in mouth syndrome, Friday is a psychology ninja, Happy Ending, Humor, Idiots in Love, IronHawk - Freeform, Light Angst, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Romance, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Humor, Smut, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Steve doesn't get paid enough for this shazbot, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, WinterFalcon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 23:16:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12220974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: “One's not half of two; two are halves of one.”—e. e. cummingsOr: Two relationships Captain Steve Rogers has observed from the outside, and one relationship Steve was in far too deep—and didn’t even realize—to be anything but observed.Chapter One Summary: Sometimes, when Stark smiles, Clint forgets . . . forgets that the guy can be such a fuckingassholeat a moment’s notice. And Stark . . . Stark doesn’t forgetanything. He even remembers—to the minute, almost—the six month-iversary of their first time.WithoutFriday’s help or reminding.Stevemay have thoughts on why that is, but he’s no scholar of the Human Condition and anyway, Clint’s never been one for baseless speculation.And it’d take a lot more than Stark is capable of ever giving to make Clint think that speculationisn’tbaseless.





	Six Halves of One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vinniebatman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinniebatman/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Post-Civil War AU. Humor, smut, angst, and fluff. Romance. Set a couple years after the big dust-up. Note, that in this ‘verse, Barton was never married and his hearing loss isn’t yet an issue. Tony and Pepper are no longer together. Coulson _did_ “die,” several years back, but . . . he got better! And now, he’s part of the Avenger’s Initiative!

 

 

**Chapter One: but, my god, it's so beautiful (when the boy smiles)**

 

Later, after many euphoric and dazed afterglows that inspired the kind of gentle soul-searching Steve Rogers had _never_ been good at—at least not the _gentle_ portion of it—Steve would decide that it was all Stark and Barton’s fault.

 

Well . . . at least, it wouldn’t have gotten _started_ —the reflections, realizations, the flustered reaction to said realizations, the weird _vibe_ (in today’s parlance) between him and Coulson—any of it, if not for Stark and Barton . . . Tony and Clint . . . sneaking around like teenagers with no care for possibly getting caught. Just impulsively screwing around _anyplace_ they thought they could get away with it, with none but Friday the wiser.

 

And considering that Friday would have to be told _not_ to warn her creator of incoming Avengers about to stumble upon his tryst with Clint, Tony _really_ should’ve been more careful after putting his number one warning-system on standby.

 

So, it was hardly _Steve’s_ fault that, as he was passing by a locked, unused storage closet—not far from the reinforced, on-premises lab Bruce Banner used whenever he was working with the Avengers Initiative’s New York City branch—he paused upon hearing a startled, gasping cry and a muffled, shaking: “Oh, _fuck_!”

 

Having just returned from a solo mission in Kurdistan that’d only required stealth and speed, and thus _not_ the full force of the Avengers assembled, Steve was mere minutes post-Fury debriefing—even still in full uniform. En route to his quarters for the first time since getting back, he was _also_ still in mission-headspace, more than a little. So, of course, he’d immediately grabbed his shield and brought it down on the code-lock below the closet's knob. In slightly less than a second, that lock was broken, twisted metal and wires on the floor at his feet, and the door was rebounding open as if kicked.

 

The sight that greeted a tired, wired, on-edge Steve Rogers was one that’d haunt him until his dying day.

 

“Uh, _wow_ ,” Tony Stark had finally said, his manic, dark eyes wide and his normally quick mouth caught in a mostly soundless gape. “Wow. That was . . . unexpected and probably _not_ good for my fancy, experimental ticker. And yet . . . is it weird that I’m even _more_ turned on than I was ten seconds ago?”

 

“Fuck,” Clint Barton had groaned—the same voice that’d sworn less than twenty seconds prior—his wide, sky-blue eyes rolling as he glanced away from Steve and back over his shoulder at Tony. He huffed a winded, desperate laugh, licked his lips, and closed his eyes. “Yeah, it’s actually really, _really_ weird. You’re a total pervert and I’m utterly horrified that of all the people who _coulda_ walked in on us fucking, it was _Captain America_. This moment is a perfect storm of shame, embarrassment, and mortification. At least for all of us who aren’t _you_.” Clint sighed, shaking his blond head and hanging it a little, so that it touched the wall Tony had been pinning him against. Then he frowned and inclined his head back toward Tony’s. “Okay, but seriously, _none of that_ meant _stop fucking me_ , Stark.”

 

That said, Clint hung his head once more and rocked his naked-from-the-waist-down body back into Tony’s and Tony’s gaze, widening and fluttering, swung from Steve to the back of Clint’s head. The hand Steve could see, wide, work-roughened, and square, slid up and around from its clench on Clint’s hip, to his abdomen. Then further up, pushing up Clint’s grey t-shirt and settling on the center of his chest.

 

Then Stark thrust against—and _into_ , it was clear—Clint hard enough to force another startled, pained and pleasured cry from the other man that made Steve blink and blush, and drop his shield with a loud clang-crack of vibranium-on-tile.

 

“Thaaaaaat’s right, Katniss. These odds’re _ever_ gonna be _all up_ in your favor,” Tony grunted cheerfully, and Clint laughed again, high and breathless.

 

“Oh, my _God, please_ stop talking.”

 

“Yeah, I get ya, Green Arrow. That feeling when: . . . the dick’s _so_ good, words’re unnecessary.” Another grunt, smug and evil. “Far be it from me to cheapen a _Moment_.”

 

Clint made a sound that was not a giggle. But only because _Hawkeye_ _did not_ giggle, as far as Steve knew. “Ass. Hole.”

 

But he still turned his head toward Tony once more for a lingering, uncoordinated, clumsy-passionate kiss. One that Tony returned with the intense, intent focus that made Steve almost nostalgic for the Good Ol’ Days, when the entire world was on fire and HYDRA was holding a bucket of gas.

 

 _History just repeats itself and repeats itself_ , he thought absently, watching the two Avengers kiss while, himself,having a moment of startling dislocation.

 

 _For_ that moment, it was 1944, and Steve was watching, half in horror and half in amusement, as his best friend—skirt-chaser, extraordinaire, James Buchanan Barnes—pinned a startled, but clearly _not_ uninterested Howard Stark against his messy desk. And then _kissed_ him, hard and deep and aggressive . . . though, the kiss had seemed almost prosaic, with Howard’s ubiquitous nocturnes playing in the background, and the distant sounds of hustle-bustle and random gunfire.

 

(Not to mention, one of the gadget-y, blinking doodads Howard could always be seen tinkering with had been _blorping_ and _blooping_ on his desk, when Bucky, trailing a mother-henning Steve, had swaggered unsteadily into Howard's office. As the kiss went on, the doodad began tweeting and chirping like an excited canary.)

 

Bucky had been, as always after a mission and debriefing, _blind-skunk drunk_ , but obviously determined to kiss the lips off the eccentric millionaire’s face. And Howard had flailed, at first, then clearly decided _what the hell?_ And he’d kissed Bucky _back_ , teasing and _dirty_ , while laughing low and throaty and _amused_ in a way that would turn out to be genetic.

 

Around the time Howard’s hands hand clamped down on Bucky’s backside—and Bucky had already wedged his right thigh high up between Howard’s, and the other man was not shy about grinding down on said thigh, moaning and trying to talk into their kiss—Steve’s brain had had enough. He’d backed out of Howard’s office, pulling the door shut behind him.

 

And though it'd shortly spread around the base like wildfire that Sergeant Barnes and Howard Stark were queer for each other, it was just one of many loosely-kept secrets that everyone shrugged and ignored. Even during briefings and meetings, when Bucky and Howard stared at each other in the most unhidden, obvious, and hot-eyed way, the people who mattered—the General, Peggy, the Commandos, and their hangers-on and support—rolled their own eyes and everyone went back to the business of winning a war.

 

Steve was just glad he never _saw_ them canoodling again. Though others weren’t nearly so lucky.

 

So, in a sense, he supposed _this_ —a reboot (in the parlance) featuring _Stark: The Sequel_ , and yet another fierce and courageous soldier Steve was honored to also call friend, fraternizing, as it were—was payback or comeuppance of a kind. He’d apparently been let off too lightly, seventy-five years ago.

 

“What—what—?” Steve stuttered and huffed. Tony, breaking the kiss to nuzzle into Clint’s tousled hair, his ear, his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, continued to put his back into measured, driving thrusts that forced Clint up on his bare (as usual, when in the Tower and not on Ready-status) toes more than once. Steve could only assume the pile of blue denim near those toes was one of Clint’s many pairs of jeans. Tony was still wearing _his_ distressed, designer black jeans, with only his fly unzipped for . . . access. “What the _hell_ , you two? What _is this_?”

 

“C’mon, Cap. Even _you’re_ not _that_ naïve. Now, either pitch-in or get lost,” Tony panted out, his sweaty face scrinched tight and rapidly turning red. His thrusts were increasing in speed and intensity, and Clint was making those desperate, tiny cries a lot more frequently. One wide, work-roughened, square hand—not so different from Tony’s, but for tapering, nimble fingers, rather than blunt-tipped ones—braced against the wall, above his head and the other came up to cover Tony’s where it now rested over his heart.

 

“You’re . . . a fucking asshole, Stark,” Clint exhaled, half-snort and half-laugh.

 

“Me? Hey— _I’m_ not the one watching his colleagues get nasty in a closet like it’s amateur cam-porn!” Tony protested, sounding truly offended as he cast a waspish, but wry glower at Steve. Clint snorted again even as Steve turned redder and took a step back.

 

“You’re inviting _Captain America_ to help you fuck me in a semi-public place. And at this point, I know you don’t mean _after_ you’re done fucking me, either. I’ve seen your porn collection, remember?” Clint gasped again, wavering and long. Then laughed and moaned, licking his lips once more. “Fuck, _Tony_. . . .”

 

“Well, you’ve seen _some_ of it, anyway. And _c’mon_ , Legolas, you’re saying you _wouldn’t_ wanna be DP’ed by Iron Man _and_ Captain America?” Tony demanded incredulously. “Like I _can’t_ feel how much you’re getting off on him just _watching_ us fuck, never mind him lending a hand. Or a cock, as the case may be.”

 

“I’m so _, so very sorry_ about this, Steve,” Clint gritted out, his face now alarmingly red—practically magenta. “Stark may be an asshole, but I’m an enabler, so I’m as much at fault. Please stop looking so traumatized. And give us a few minutes if you’re, uh, _not_ gonna . . . pitch-in. . . .”

 

“Ha! What’d I say!” Tony crowed, thrusting with even more vigor, driving an eerie, high wail from Clint as the other man braced himself against the wall, then all but threw himself back up against Tony like a man with a point to make and prove.

 

“Fraternization is . . . is a complicated and s-slippery slope to. . . .” Steve began numbly, his voice whistling and falling like an aging tea-kettle at a boil.

 

“Close the door, Cap, and save the speech for later. It’ll keep,” Stark grunted out almost kindly, between a series of hard, slow, barely coordinated thrusts that Clint met with equal and opposing force, head now thrown back. Tony nuzzled Clint’s face again, and brought his hand up to Clint’s throat, grasping possessively, just tight enough to make a point of his own, and make Clint groan with raw, wanton need. Then he tilted Clint’s face up and over just enough to steal sloppy, panting kisses.

 

“ _Harder_ , asshole,” Clint growled into Tony’s mouth, biting his lower lip and laving it with his tongue.

 

“Keep _that_ up, Barton, and you’re gonna _get_ _harder_ , all right. You’re gonna be feeling me for your next _six lives_.”

 

“Ah, _fuuuuuuuck_. . . !”

 

Having suddenly—thankfully—regained the use of his sense and limbs, Steve reached out and shut the closet door. Not that it stayed that way, with the code-lock obliterated and the frenzied activity going on behind it, but it was the thought that counted.

 

And, anyway, Steve had already retrieved his shield and hurried off to his quarters.

 

A shower, shave, and some comfy civvies later found Steve in the Community Room—technically an entire floor of the Avengers’ Tower given over to fellowship and bonding, which included home theaters, video games systems and platforms, three bars, a dance floor, a bowling alley, several lounges, two kitchens, and anything else such a wide and well-equipped space could handle—eating a pizza while slumped in his favorite couch in his favorite lounge. He was so burnt-out and on the down-swing from nearly a week of adrenaline-fueled espionage and fighting and escapes, that he’d managed to actually put Tony and Clint out of mind, along with damn near everything else that wasn’t the current episode of _Mork & Mindy_ he was watching on one of the Room’s seventy-two-inch curving televisions.

 

He was nearly five slices into the pie when Tony strutted in, looking smug and amused, followed by an exasperated and amused— _fond_ —Clint. They were both wearing different clothes than they had been three hours ago, but Clint’s neck was covered in love-bites and he was almost hobbling, compared to his usual fluid stride.

 

“Ah, _shazbot_ ,” Steve muttered wearily, his current slice halfway to his mouth.

 

“ _Nanu-nanu_ , Captain Rogers! Also, _language_ , Mister!” Tony chastised, loping toward the couch and hurling himself at it. Steve sighed when Tony landed heavily to his right and snatched a slice of pizza from the half-emptied box. “ _Plain_? Yeesh, Cap, where’s the olives, pineapple, and ham?”

 

“Ugh.” Steve shuddered, dropping his slice back in the box. Clint passed between Tony and Steve, and the coffee table, and sat on Steve’s left with a soundless, slightly pained grunt. One that made Tony elbow Steve and waggle his brows ridiculously, and Steve blush and repeat himself: “ _Ugh_.”

 

“Yep. That’s the kinda reaction he inspires in all of us,” Clint noted dryly, and Tony smirked around his mouthful of pizza.

 

“Uh-huh. Methinks the extreme power-bottom doth protest too much.”

 

This time, Clint was the one to turn pink. Then he cleared his throat and quirked a crooked smile at Steve. “You probably wish you could bleach your brain, right about now, huh?”

 

“Something like that, yeah,” Steve admitted, quirking a limp smile right back. On his other side, Tony chewed and chuckled.

 

“Please, I don’t care how straight and narrow you _think_ you are, Captain Vanilla, Stark and Barton fucking is _easily_ the hottest thing you’ll ever see.”

 

“Jesus, do you _ever_ shut up? Wait, _of course_ , you don’t. _You’re Tony Stark_ ,” Clint said in a merry, huckstering voice that was just shy of sarcastic. The air-quotes were pretty audible, though. “You talk even when my _cock_ is in your mouth or your tongue is up my ass, so, yeah. I guess that’s asked and answered, huh?”

 

“Ah, _c’mon_ , guys,” Steve moaned, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose and resolutely _did not_ entertain _any_ mental images. “I don’t need to hear stuff like that.”

 

But Tony merely chuckled again and sighed contentedly. “Ah, Barton. Proving my points handily since 2012.”

 

“You guys’ve been doing . . . _that_ since _then_? F—uh, fraternizing?” Steve demanded, opening his eyes and darting his horrified gaze between his friends. Clint looked insulted and Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“Nah. Not back _then_. Though it was pretty obvious Barton’d been hankering for the D, Stark-style, _since_ then, _at least_ ,” Tony claimed and Clint made a rude noise and an even ruder gesture.

 

“In your dreams, Stark. And we’ve only been . . . fraternizing for about six months, Steve, give or take a week.”

 

“Six months on the nose, next Wednesday evening, actually,” Tony said, so calm and casual, even Steve could tell the nonchalance was as fake as it was thick. And perhaps Clint could, too, because he goggled over at Tony with wide, surprised eyes the exact color of the patch of sky halfway between a brilliant sunset and an encroaching, restful twilight. He blinked a bunch of times, opened and closed his mouth, then, finally, huffed.

 

“You have Friday keeping track of how long we’ve been fucking around? Classy, Stark.”

 

Tony’s eyes narrowed a bit and his mouth twitched up at the corners. Then he smiled, small and almost uncertain, before shrugging and taking another bite of his slice. He actually waited until he’d swallowed it to start speaking, this time, his expressive eyebrows wiggle-waggling a bit. “Eh. I don’t need Friday to keep track of the dates that . . . matter.”

 

Clint blinked and gaped again, then actually blushed, looking down at his denim-clad knees with a small smile of his own. And Tony aimed _his_ smile at his slice, crooked and bemused. Flustered, somewhere under his ten tons of cool and irony.

 

 _Oh_ , Steve thought. And he also thought of the days immediately after Bucky’s supposed death. They’d all been devastated by his loss. But both Steve and Howard had climbed into their respective bottles . . . the latter for ten days, straight, as opposed to Steve’s pointless two. Said bottling had had surprisingly no impact on Howard’s determination, work ethic, or the quality/quantity of his output. And when he’d finally climbed out of his indiscriminate binge-drinking—well after Steve had—Howard had been pale and quiet, grim and distracted. Shaky about the hands and noticeably gaunt. But his dark eyes had remained determined and angry, cheated and _lost_ even after he got sober. _Raging, grief-stricken,_ and _shell-shocked_ , under a thin veneer of impassive and cynical distance.

 

So, if anyone knew that the faker and thicker that infamous Stark nonchalance and _laissez-faire_ , the more that Stark had riding on his chosen horse . . . it was Steve.

 

 _Stark and Barton. Huh._ He shook his head. _Clint’s not the horse_ I’d _have bet on, even if I’d guessed Tony had inherited this sort of . . ._ open-mindedness _from Howard. Never in a million years. Stark and Barton . . . son of a gun. I guess opposites really_ do _attract. But if they’re_ happy _together . . . if they can count on,_ trust _, and take solace in each other in these difficult times. . . ._

 

“Wow, this’s . . . uh, surprising. _Very_. But . . . congratulations? On settling down? On your . . . um _, domestic partnership_? That’s . . . that’s the lifestyle-inclusive term, right?” Steve ventured quietly. Both Tony’s and Clint’s heads whipped up, their faces set in identical expressions of shock and fright.

 

“ _Domestic_ —HA! He _wishes_! I’m the original _Wyld Stallyn_! Uncut and untamed, five-evah!” Stark declared with a nervous laugh. At the same moment, Clint flushed deeper and shrugged, his shock and fright fading to an openly anxious, but boyish smile as he muttered something that sounded a lot like: _Eh, I fight aliens and robots with a bow and arrow, Cap. Anything’s_ possible _, I s’pose. Even settling down._

 

Then he was glaring at Tony with narrowed eyes and Tony was gaping right back in obvious startlement. Both seemed to have forgotten Steve was there.

 

“I can’t believe you,” Clint finally said incredulously, unhappily.

 

“Uhhhhh,” Steve said, closing the pizza box just after Tony tossed his partially eaten slice back in it. He was smirking smugly and leaning toward Clint—once again, as if Steve wasn’t even there—having probably not picked up on the fact that _this_ was not a moment for either smirks or smugness.

 

“Damn, playah! Sounds like _you_ got caught up in the game, yo! Stark sex-magic, for the _win_!”

 

“Wow, _really_ , Tony?” Steve huffed, shaking his head and giving Tony an utterly disbelieving look, as well. Howard Stark had been a lot of things, some of them surprisingly sterling, others jaw-droppingly _not_. But one thing he _hadn’t_ been was so willfully tone-deaf and _dense_ to the feelings of his friends and lovers. Shaking his head still, Steve pasted on a commiserating smile as he turned to Clint, whose face had gone pale under his tan. It was also expressionless in a way it only ever was during missions and moments of grave danger, his eyes glittering unreadably at Tony, like chips of cobalt-colored ice. Even Steve knew that didn’t bode well. For Tony. If _someone_ didn’t intervene on his idiot-behalf, the term _dog-house_ wouldn't even begin to describe the place he'd find himself quartered. “Look, uh, don’t pay him any mind, Bart—”

 

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Clint asked quietly, as if Steve hadn’t spoken. His voice was angry, but his eyes told a different emotional story as he, too, shook his head ruefully. “Being an asshole, I mean. Just when I start thinking that _maybe_ I’ve got you wrong—”

 

“Aaaaaaaand, here comes the part where you bitch at and blame _me_ for the fact that _you_ can’t keep your hands off me and haven’t been able to since that World Summit in Jakarta,” Tony drawled negligently, but his dark eyes were also telling quite a different story than his tone.

 

“Uhhhhh. . . .” Steve said again after almost a minute had passed, tense and silent, with both Avengers staring each other down with gazes that Steve didn’t have to look up and see, to feel. All he wanted was to take his partially eaten pie and slink away. Back to his quarters, where the television wasn’t so large, but where there was also no relationship drama. And all the bites in all the slices were his own.

 

“You’re right,” Clint finally admitted, calm, flat, and without inflection as he stood up, wincing and stretching. His smile was tight and hard, his eyes locked on _Mork & Mindy_, now. “It’s just that I forget, sometimes . . . when you smile at me a certain way. I kinda forget—kinda go stupid—and doubt what I already _know_. Because I want so badly to be _wrong_ about what I know. I _forget_ that all you are is charm and bullshit and a taker-brain. But you’re absolutely right: that’s all on me. Got no one to blame for that but myself. _I’m_ the one who started it. Guess that means I’ll have to be the one to finish it, too. Thanks for the reminder, Stark. And the incentive. See ya around, Cap.”

 

Then Clint was gone, wraith-silent and fast, leaving behind the scents of fabric softener and Tony’s super-expensive aftershave.

 

Tony’s shocked gaze and regretful gape followed Clint out of the room, then he continued staring after Clint long after he was gone from sight.

 

But finally, Tony’s gaze shifted. To the floor, the television, the baby grand near the closest bank of picture windows. Then, at last, to Steve. His normally merry-manic eyes were round, lost, and unhappy. It was shades and flashes of Howard-in-despair, all over again. Not as intense and deep, but all the hallmarks were there.

 

Tony Stark was every inch his father’s son.

 

“What,” Tony started, then laughed a bit, miserable and brief, “what in sweet fuck just happened, Cap?”

 

“Dunno,” Steve said, yawning then patting his friend’s shoulder in stolid, stoic support. “But you’re probably tasting shoe-leather pretty strong, at the moment.”

 

The only response this garnered was a slow, uncomprehending blink. Steve sighed and shrugged, shoving the pizza box at Tony, who took it automatically.

 

“I’m not, uh . . . a relationship expert. Or a . . . whatever-you-and-Barton-have expert. But if _whatever it is_ matters to you—if any of what Barton just said about you _is wrong_ , or could be, Tony . . . then ya _gotta_ tell him. _Show him_. Before he _stops wanting_ to be wrong about you. Before. . . .”

 

Tony snorted and glowered, looking away at the television. His jaw was set and so tight Steve knew he was gritting, and trying not to grind his teeth. “Before _what_?”

 

Rolling his eyes, Steve stood up, also stretching and wincing. But because the last of his mission-adrenaline was finally ebbing away in a sudden rush, _not_ because he’d been enthusiastically corn-holed by Tony Stark. In less than ten minutes, he knew, he’d be out cold, wherever he happened to be, for the next ten hours at least.

 

“Before _Nat_ susses out who broke her best friend’s heart and why, for one thing. And _definitely_ before she invents new and creative ways to make you regret your big, quick mouth even more than I’m sure you already do, for another,” he said bluntly, with a sardonic nod to a horrified-looking Tony. “Anyway, I’m off to bed and outta commission for the next ten or twelve hours, but if there’s an emergency. . . .”

 

“Friday’ll wake ya, yeah,” Tony mumbled, waving dismissively and staring down at the pizza box in his lap. He looked both melancholy and disturbed. And very, very lost.

 

“Indeed, I shall, Captain Rogers,” Friday added pleasantly, and Steve saluted the ceiling, in which Friday’s speakers were embedded.

 

“Thanks, Friday. Have a good one.”

 

“You, as well, Captain. Sleep well.”

 

“ _Am_ I an asshole, Friday?” Tony wondered in a smaller, sadder voice than Steve had ever heard from him. And as he strode to the archway that lead to the hall and the elevators, Friday’s kind, amused, _fond_ reply made him smile a little.

 

“Not _always_ , Master Stark . . . . not always. And after you and Agent Barton have both had time to . . . cool off, perhaps you might engage in a candid discussion about personality and humor, and their uses as defense-mechanisms?”

 

A brief, barking laugh sounded from Tony, cynical, but listless, as Steve paused near the exit. “Freudian theory, Friday? Really? I programmed you better than that. In _this_ Tower, young lady, we are _Jungians_. Ride-or-die Jungians.”

 

Friday hummed for a few moments, trilling and girlish. “While that _is_ a statement of fact, sir, it is also a classic _deflection_ , of a sort of which you make frequent use. And deflection is _also_ a common defense-mechanism that’s habitually used as part of denial and avoidance of blame, as well as preservation of a fragile self-concept. . . .” 

 

TBC

**Author's Note:**

> Yep. I’m on [The Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com). So, stop on by :-)


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